2005-06-29

Steady As She Goes

Eugene asked me to comment on this, which is a response to Bush's speech. What is it that all the nutcases don't get about this war? You do NOT open an unnecessary front against Islam. If you do that, you have to kill all of them yourself. Currently you have Muslims killing other Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. What more could you possibly want?! Are they not being killed at a rapid enough rate for your liking or what? No options have been closed off. At any point in the future, Bush can simply tell a democratic Iraq, "either close down all the mosques, or Basrah and Baghdad get nuked". A democratic Iraq is likely to choose to save itself. Saddam didn't give a toss about the well-being of the Iraqi people, but a democratic government should. Even if the democracy doesn't respond in a sane manner, there will be those who are sane. You simply need to empower them, and let them kill all those who want to retain mosques. It's like shooting rats in a barrel.

And as for the pullbacks in Fallujah and Najaf, you only think that was wrong because you AREN'T AS SMART AS BUSH. When Iraq was being liberated, no-one had any idea whether the liberators would be welcomed or reviled. There was only one way to find out. The lefties were convinced that all Iraqis spoke with one voice and all goose-stepped to Saddam's tune. The answer was exactly the opposite. The Iraqis didn't speak with one voice. There was a full range of opinion, from those suicidally anti-American, to those completely pro-American. That then raised a SCIENTIFIC QUESTION. Why were some in favour, some against? Why was Al Sadr (Shiite) against, Al Sistani hedging his bets, and long queues forming to join the new security services? This question needed to be answered. It was vitally important to know the answer to this, so that a political solution could potentially be found for the rest of the Middle East, instead of having to use the military all the time. Fallujah and Najaf were part of the experiment. The insurgents did not understand that they were completely outgunned and could easily be defeated. Pullbacks were done so that we could find out exactly what they were trying to do. Simply crushing them would have meant that we LOST THAT INFORMATION FOR ETERNITY. I don't know if the US government was analyzing the situation as much as I was, but I was TOTALLY ENGROSSED in solving this enigma. I formed a conclusion. The conclusion is that in the event of chaos (the limited US forces in Iraq meant that people had no-one controlling them, so it was pretty chaotic), a subjugate-or-be-subjugated genetic instinct in humans is invoked. Try it for yourself. It probably only works if you're male. Clear your head of empathy, imagine you're in a smallish tribe and the tribal leader has just died with no successor, and everyone is looking around, wanting to know who is going to be in charge now. It's subjugate-or-be-subjugated. The word "subjugate" is not in our genes obviously. It manifests itself in a desire to reach out your hands and CONTROL ALL MOVING THINGS. There is a wonderful power rush that comes with having all moving things under your control. I was able to experience it once when I concentrated hard and tried to imagine that situation. There is NOTHING YOU WON'T DO. It is a life-or-death situation. In our liberal democracies, we don't get to experience this, because there are limits on everyone's power, throughout the system. It manifests itself in rapists though.

Anyway, Bush has done everything exactly correctly. If anyone has any specific complaints about Bush's policy, please ask me, and I'll give you my answer as to why I think it is the best tactic to do. Perhaps the complaint is how expensive Iraq is. Well, that's a valid complaint, except that it's a VERY HUMANE thing to do, to give the Iraqi people the BEST SHOT at living in a modern first-world liberal democracy. While it is expensive, America can afford it. If you want to save money, stop pouring money down a rathole in Africa. If you're not prepared to recolonize Africa, then just forget about it. This is the last country that you need to do such expensive nation-building in. All the remaining countries can fend for themselves. They just need their dictators replaced so that they have a shot at building their own wealth. Replacing a dictator takes 3 weeks and costs 100 allied lives. Do the maths. Reuse the old security forces instead of disbanding them. It was necessary to disband the extremely tainted security forces in Iraq to give the Iraqis clean western-standard institutions. For the remaining countries, just settle for something less, and look to improve it over time, instead of all at once.